A Glasgow hospital has adopted a new medical kit to help very sick children.

Staff at Royal Hospital for Children will now use a Paediatric SCRAM™ (Structured CRitical Airway Management) bag to help airway management in youngsters.

It is specially designed with paediatric equipment, which can be vital in emergency situations, and will now be placed outside of intensive care units and theatre environments.

It comes after evidence showed that for critically unwell children, “adverse events associated with tracheal intubation can have significant effects on mortality and morbidity.”

Glasgow Times: Staff at Royal Hospital for Children will now use a Paediatric SCRAM™ bagStaff at Royal Hospital for Children will now use a Paediatric SCRAM™ bag (Image: Sourced)

This means if a doctor has to place a tube through a child's mouth or nose, so that air can get through, there is more chance of complications.

Now the SCRAM bag hopes to offer staff the necessary tools quickly and on demand in these incidents.

From January 2019 to October 2020, all emergency calls to the wards at the Royal Hospital for Children were reviewed with 43 relevant cases identified and four in particular where advanced airway management was performed.

Co-creator of Paediatric SCRAM™ Paul Swinton said: “To know that the Royal Hospital for Children has adopted Paediatric SCRAM™ after a period of rigorous testing and concluded that it has seen an improvement in processes, while encouraging best practice and waste reduction, is a highly positive outcome.

“Paediatric SCRAM™ was developed to enhance the performance of emergency paediatric airway management for the benefit of both patients and staff working in these demanding medical situations.

“Seeing the positive results is fantastic and is testament to significant partnership working that informed the development of SCRAM™.”